


You Can Hear Our Voices Echo

by aerike



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Anxiety, Loneliness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:40:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23259313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerike/pseuds/aerike
Summary: Loneliness is a sickness, you see.
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 214





	You Can Hear Our Voices Echo

Thanatos stared at the several baskets in front of him, all of them filled to the brim with pastries, bread, small cakes and sugar cookies. He blinked, his brain trying to catch up with the blabbering coming out of Zagreus' mouth.

"--and Eurydice's pom porridge is just _amazing_ , I always forget to ask for her recipe..."

"Zag"

Zagreus turned around abruptly, as if he forgot Thanatos wasn't just his chambers' walls silently listening to his rambles, the wooden spoon in his hand dripping with the mix for surely another batch of food Thanatos wasn't sure who would eat. He never stayed around to see someone else besides Meg or Dusa, rarely even Zagreus himself, eat something from the kitchen. Would shades eat a slice of bread while waiting for their sentence from Lord Hades? Would Hypnos munch on a sugar cookie while trying to stay awake and doing his job for once?

"Hm?"

"What are you even doing?"

"Oh," Zagreus put the spoon in a random bowl by his side, reclining his hip on the counter, "Couldn't think of anything else to do, so... I'm cooking?"

Thanatos stared again at the several small piles of food in the baskets in front of him, then back at Zagreus. The younger god was, most of times, a seemingly bottomless well of restless energy, bouncing and running around as if the Underworld always had a small corner he hadn't explored yet. And still, Thanatos could see the heavy bags under his eyes, could see the tension on his shoulders, could feel the anxiety lying underneath the layer of confidence the prince always kept up. And he was using his red chiffon as an apron, tied around his waist instead of over his chest, several speckles of sugar and flour spread on it.

His brows furrowed. Had Zagreus been overextending himself? ( _If such a thing could even happen_ ).

"When was the last time you had _reasonable_ hours of sleep?"

Zagreus snorted, turning back to the bowl by his side.

"According to father I don't do anything around here, so why would I even need sleep in the first place?"

" _Hey!_ " He heard Hypnos yell from the corridor.

"I'm _joking_!" Zagreus retorted, picking one of the tiny bottles of spice and almost dropping all of its content inside the bowl.

Another basket suddenly appeared in front of him. Thanatos turned around, seeing the head chef pick one of the sharp knives on the board, getting ready to slice the several fishes inside the basket.

"Oh, hey head chef!" Zagreus smiled ( _strained smile, tired smile, he's hidding something_ ), "So, think we can have the stew tonight..today...whatever?"

The head chef nodded enthusiastically, pointing its cape-covered finger to the bowl in Zagreus' hands, curiosity in its face.

"Oh, this? I want Than to try this one, it's a surprise, sorry!"

Thanatos stared at the head chef's face with narrowed eyes. The shade was _blushing_. For what reason? Zagreus and Thanatos were the only ones there, besides the broker, what would he be blushing about? Frowning, he couldn't help but notice how the shade's eyes would every so often bounce to Zagreus, only to quickly turn back to the fish in its hands when they noticed Thanatos' glare. His hand clenched the cup in his hand tighter.

He sighed, rolling his shoulders.

"Zag, I need to go back to work."

Zagreus blinked, as if only then remembering Death had a schedule, contrary to his twin brother or anyone else in the house besides Lord Hades. Thanatos felt a small clench in his dead heart at Zagreus' slightly sagged shoulders, the prince no longer cooking with the enthusiasm he was showing before. But there was nothing Thanatos could do ( _was there?_ ), the souls waited for no one and he wasn't willing to sit through one of Lord Hades' long monologues about how work was the most important thing in the House and how everyone besides him neglected it. 

If only mortals didn't die with the same frequency they breathed.

"Oh, then..." Zagreus looked around, a slightly lost look on his face. Thanatos couldn't help but notice how low his voice sounded, how _so unZagreus_ the prince was acting, "I will... I will leave these here for you later! They won't be as warm, but I hope they taste good anyway."

Thanatos nodded, summoning his scythe back, leaving the half downed cup of wine on the counter.

"See you."

" _Loneliness is a sickness, you see_ ," the dying man in front of him whispered. His house was empty, of objects and of soul, " _It eats you from the inside out, and you don't notice it until you see the weather is good outside and you have no one to talk about how beautiful the clouds look, how the grass shines green, how you feel you could smile_ _, but no one is there, no one is there to talk to you about how the butterflies bring color to the world, about how the sun makes your cheeks feel warm. And suddenly the sky is gray, and its raining and your chest feels so tight and so empty at the same time, and your throat no longer works, and its full of tears_ ".

Thanatos stared at him. The man was just that, a man, just one more soul on the list for Hypnos to check. Just one more name down, several more to go. Old, full of wrinkles on his sickly hued skin, smelling like wine and opium, overall a pathetic figure of a mortal, and yet Thanatos couldn't tell why his scythe hadn't slice the man's throat just yet.

" _Is death lonely, I wonder?_ " The man giggled, losing his balance from where he was sitting down, his head wobbled and hit the wall beside him, " _So many souls to bring back to the god of the dead, do any of them stop to talk to him? Or are they so scared of their punishment that they choose to beg for mercy from someone who is only doing their job?_ "

"Death is not lonely," Thanatos mumbled back, half of his mind wondering why he was even bothering to answer a dead man, "But Life might be."

His scythe found the man's throat, his soul whispering yet another laugh.

Zagreus wasn't a lonely person, per se. In the House he was always around someone. Either chatting with Nyx, or making Dusa blush and stutter, making Megaera let out a surprised laugh, helping Hypnos do his job even less.

And yet, as Thanatos looked at him from his spot in the shadows of Elysium, he couldn't help but think of how lonely Zagreus looked like.

It _was_ a lonely ordeal, the one the young god was going through. To find his birth mother on the surface, a place almost as infinite as the Underworld seemed to be. Thanatos had given up on asking Zagreus to stay long ago, it was clear the young god was as stubborn as the gods up in Olympus tended to be ( _as his own father seemed to be_ ), clawing his way out of his father's reach with sharpness and sheer persistence, even after being claimed by the River Styx time and time again, only to come back with a smile and yet another bottle of nectar. Thanatos could admire such strenght, from afar and close enough, when the prince and him had their small alone together times here and there.

But Thanatos was Death itself. He couldn't follow Zagreus everywhere all the time, neither would the prince want him to, he had a job to do, and Zagreus understood that.

_But loneliness is a sickness, you see_.

Zagreus stopped at a fountain chamber, but not to drink the crystalline water. Instead, he sat down beside it, letting his red blade sit on the wall near him, then he lifted himself slightly, taking a look at the water. Thanatos wondered what he saw there. The ever stubborn fire stepping prince, the one that slayed the hydra time and time again and every so often destroyed the Champions of Elysium without a scratch? Or Zagreus, the people pleaser, the one trying to find his place in this world?

Thanatos would never know.

"Did you finally get some _actual_ sleep?" Thanatos asked, cleaning the crumbs from his lap. Zagreus had made him some kind of bread, one that tasted somewhat spicy but was still soft, tasting delicious even to Thanatos' often very picky choices, and he couldn't help but feel warm inside. Thanatos had given Zagreus a keepsake, once. Well, twice if one counted Mort as a keepsake ( _which he didn't, Mort was a companion and he couldn't hear the small mouse speak, but he could feel its will to protect Zagreus out there and it was enough_ ), and Zagreus seemed to have found his own keepsakes, in the form of cooking and baking, and Thanatos could now almost always expect some kind of comfort food waiting for him whenever the both of them where in the house. If Thanatos was at the house more frequently than ever, no one said a thing.

"I did," Zagreus wrinkled his nose, poking the slice of cake in his plate with his fork, "Didn't have pleasant dreams, though."

Thanatos raised an eyebrow, reaching for another slice of spicy bread.

"What happened?"

"Just...My old job," at Thanatos confused stared, he clarified, "in the administrative chamber, remember?"

"Oh, I..." Thanatos blinked, the bread in his plate no longer of interest to him, "I didn't remember you even had a job there."

"Yeah," Zagreus sighed, poking his plate away from him, "Better keep it like that."

Thanatos felt regret bit his heart at the sight of Zagreus' crestfallen look.

"I wish I could help Achilles and Patroclus somehow," Zagreus said, out of nowhere.

The both of them were sitting down side by side on the courtyard, on the cliff with perfect vision to Tartarus and its green sinister glow. Thanatos had grown up to that vision, before the gods and the mortal souls called to him. He could remember days (nights?) spent playing with Hypnos and Megaera there, Zagreus but a small child on Nyx's lap, watching all of them play with their silly toys, giggling everytime one of them did a dramatic voice over of their adventures.

But Hypnos and Thanatos had grown quickly, and Megaera had a job to do. All of that was long gone.

"You can't take care of everyone's business, Zagreus," Thanatos' eyebrows furrowed, his tone turning serious, "I know you want to help everyone before you go, but... You can't be everywhere, everytime, fixing everything. Sometimes things have to happen at their own pace, by their own will."

"I know that, but you saw Patroclus right?" Zagreus replied. Thanatos sighed, letting his hand rest by the prince's waist, just shy of touching him. "He's...lonely out there! Achilles asked me to keep speaking to him, but is that enough? I'm not Achilles, it won't be the same thing hearing from me as it would be hearing from Achilles."

"Zag..."

"But I do agree it would be disrespectful of me to interfere since Achilles asked me not to--"

"Zag, are you lonely?"

Zagreus snapped out of his blabbering, staring at Thanatos with an empty expression on his face. Thanatos swallowed, suddenly fearing the answer. _Was_ Zagreus lonely, out there in the Underworld, facing whatever Lord Hades threw at him? Was... was Thanatos helping him, on his few appearences here and there, with a challenge to battle and a quick kiss at the end?

"Wha--no! Why would I be...!"

"Just," Thanatos sighed, shaking his head, "Just wondering."

"Than," Zagreus whispered in the darkness of his chambers, his eyes staring at the endless depth of the Mirror of the Night, "What if she doesn't like me?"

"Who?"

"Perse-- My birth mother, what if she" Zagreus burrowed his head between Thanatos' neck and shoulder, hiding whatever expression he might be showing, "What if I'm not what I'm supposed to be to her, either?"

Thanatos blinked, taking a breath, a second to think.

"What brought this on?"

"She..." Zagreus audibly swallowed, his fingers meddling with Thanatos' hand, "She didn't even mention me on her letter, she...she even talked about Cerberus but..."

"Zag," Thanatos let his head drop to the side, his silver hair mixing with Zag's own inky black strands, "You were a child when she left."

"I know, but..."

"And you are _Zagreus_ " Thanatos closed his eyes, letting his arm tighten around Zagreus' waist, "You are you, and you are a wonderful being. And that's what is important."

"...It is?"

"It is. It is."

**Author's Note:**

> i was listening to somebody to love at 3am since i couldnt sleep  
> cheers.


End file.
